Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine Read Free Book Online Page B

them.”
    Olive rushed to the window. “Your slippers fell into a bucket of slops!”
    I had to carry the stinking slippers back to our room, but Hattie had to wear them until she was able to get fresh ones from her trunk. After that, she thought more carefully about her commands.
    At breakfast the next morning she pronounced the porridge inedible. “Don’t eat it, Ella. It will make you sick.” She loaded her spoon with oatmeal.
    Steam rose from the bowl before me, and I caught the scent of cinnamon. Mandy always put cinnamon in her porridge too.
    “Why are you eating it if it’s bad?” Olive asked her sister. “I’m hungry.”
    “Yours looks all right. I’m eating mine even though it’s vile” — her tongue licked a speck of cereal off the corner of her mouth — “because I need nourishment to take charge on our journey.”
    “You’re not in ch—” Olive began.
    “You don’t fancy your porridge, miss?” The innkeeper sounded worried.
    “My sister’s stomach is queasy,” Hattie said. “You may take her bowl away.”
    “I’m not her sister,” I said as the innkeeper disappeared into the kitchen.
    Hattie laughed, scraping her spoon around her empty bowl for the last remnants of porridge.
    The innkeeper was back with a plate of thick brown bread studded with nuts and raisins. “Perhaps this will tempt the lass’s stomach,” he said.
    I managed to take a big bite before a lady at the next table called him away.
    “Put it down, Ella.” Hattie broke off a corner of the bread and tasted it. “It’s much too rich.”
    “Rich food is good for me,” Olive said, reaching across the table.
    Between them my breakfast disappeared in four bites.
    That swallow of bread was the last food I had on our three-day trip, except for Tonic. Hattie would have deprived me of it too, except she sampled it first. And then I relished her nauseated expression when she swallowed.

CHAPTER 9
    WE PASSED through rich farmland on the final day of our journey to Jenn, the town where our finishing school was located. The day was hazy and warm, and I was almost too hot to be hungry. Hattie had energy for only one command: to fan her.
    “Fan me too,” Olive said. She had worked out that if Hattie told me to do something, I would do it, and if she directed me to do the same thing, I would do that too. Hattie hadn’t explained my obedience to her. She didn’t bother to explain much to the slow-thinking Olive, and she must have enjoyed keeping the delicious secret to herself.
    My arms ached. My stomach rumbled. I stared out the window at a flock of sheep and wished for a diversion that would take my mind away from lamb and lentil salad. My wish was granted instantly as the coach took off in a mad gallop.
    “Ogres!” the coachman yelled. A cloud of dust hid the road behind us. Through it I made out a band of ogres, kicking up the dust as they chased us.
    But we were outdistancing them. The cloud was receding.
    “Why do you run from your friends?” one of them called. It was the sweetest voice I had ever heard. “We bear gifts of your hearts’ desires. Riches, love, eternal life…”
    Heart’s desire. Mother! The ogres would bring her back from death. Why were we tearing away from everything we most wanted?
    “Slow down,” Hattie ordered unnecessarily. The coachman had already reined in the horses.
    The ogres were only yards behind. Untouched by their magic, the sheep were baa -ing and bleating their fear. Briefly their noise covered the honeyed words and the spell broke. I remembered that the ogres couldn’t revive Mother. The horses were again whipped to a gallop.
    But the ogres would be beyond the sheep in a minute and we’d be at their mercy again. I shouted to Hattie and Olive and to the coachman and footmen. “Yell so you can’t hear them.”
    The coachman understood first and joined my voice with his, shouting words I’d never heard before. Then Hattie began. “Eat me last! Eat me last!” she